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ICRI General Meeting Belize: Summary of Events

The second General Meeting under the Australia-Belize Secretariat was held from the 14-17 October 2013 in Belize City, Belize. Australia and UNEP provided travel support to a number of delegates therefore enabling their participation in the meeting. Over 60 delegates from about 30 countries attended.

The outcomes of the 9th ICRI East Asia Regional workshop, held on 9-12 September 2013 in Singapore. The workshop focused on management effectiveness.

UNEP’s Coral Reef Partnership

UNEP’s Coral Reef Unit presented a refined concept of the ‘Global Coral Coast Partnership’, a support framework for national and regional actions to reduce pressures on coral reefs and related ecosystems which would work primarily through Regional Seas. ICRI members were asked to consider collaborating with the partnership, submit comments and suggestions and approved the participation of the ICRI Secretariat in the partnership as an ex-officio member of the partnership governing body.

Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network

A side meeting was held to discuss governance issues for the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN). The main ideas behind of these discussions were reported on the first day of the meeting, and included:

Current challenges encountered by the GCRMN, including financial, lack of coordinator and consequential lack of communication with regional networks;

The need to secure funding to resolve these challenges, starting with the hiring of a new coordinator

The need to clarify the role and composition of the GCRMN governing bodies e.g. the GCRMN Management Group. Terms of Reference for the Management Group were discussed, and will be circulated for further discussion before the end of the Australia-Belize Secretariat tenure.

Parallel discussions held on the revival of the GCRMN Caribbean Network led to the following conclusions:

The network shall be named ‘GCRMN Caribbean Regional Committee’ and include a core group of people involved in monitoring (<10) which will be co-chaired by the GCRMN coordinator and a rotating regional member.

The membership of this Committee should be identified with the help of local key players with the help of ICRI members and the ICRI Secretariat.

The members of this Committee will gather information as geographically assigned, and in turn, provide feedback and support to data providers including on protocol and management.

The Committee would meet on a regular basis to assemble data/information and discuss challenges and way forward. The Netherlands offered to host and support a first meeting of this Committee.

It was agreed that although this model would work for the Caribbean region, it would not necessarily be applicable to other regions, which will be approached on this matter to provide comment/suggestions.

Next ICRI hosts

A handover ceremony was held to reflect the passing of the ICRI Secretariat from Australia and Belize to Japan and Thailand (incoming Secretariat). The tenure of the incoming Secretariat will start on 1 April 2014; the two co-hosts will hold secretariat duties for two years